SKMurphy Support Letter for Kinetic River SBIR

SKMurphy Support Letter for Kinetic River SBIR

Wed-Sep-5-2018

I am writing to support the Kinetic River Phase II SBIR on a novel flow cytometry instrument. Since 2003 I have worked at SKMurphy, Inc. as a business development consultant for dozens of early stage technology startups. I have been an advisor to Kinetic River since mid-2013 and am currently on the Kinetic River advisory board.

My particular expertise in new technology product introduction has been honed from experience in product management at Cisco Systems, MMC Networks, and Silvar-Lisco as well as working as an engineer and engineering manager tasked with evaluating and acquiring and integrating new products into workflows at firms like Advanced Micro Devices and 3Com.

For the last 15 years I have worked primarily with teams of two to five engineers or scientists who have been bootstrapping the development of new systems or software products that leverage their domain experience and expertise. In addition to supporting Kinetic River I have worked with other startups that have developed OCT-based systems for detailed analysis of optic nerve and related disorders, workflow and analytic tools for medical and legal case management, multiple spend management and contract management applications, and a NoSQL database used by Shell Oil to model subsurface 3D structures.

I have assisted the Canary foundation in fostering collaboration among several technology startups they provided grants to, with an eye to increasing research efficiency, reproducibility, and cutting time to practical use of the technologies.

New technology product purchase negotiations are much more complex than those that involve the acquisition of configurable products, much less well understood point solutions or commodities. They involve an ongoing partnership between the startup and early customers in a co-evolution of the offering with the startup adding key capabilities in a way that each customer can add some configuration and customization to their particular needs. They share in the value that they co-create and this requires the recognition of the need to plan and manage a series of joint development projects for all parties to reap full value. Because I have worked on "both sides of the table" I bring an understanding of requirements of both the startup and the customer.

I have been fortunate to collaborate with Dr. Vacca in that he brings considerable instrumentation development experience and a deep appreciation of the ongoing end user configuration and adaption of the configurable systems Kinetic River has provided them.